Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 10/15/18: Overthrowing The Government, Replacing Umpires, and Fooling Some Of The People Who Never Did Their Science And Math Assignments [UPDATED!]

1. Baseball Ethics: Again, Robocalls, please! Last night, Game #2 of the American League Championship Series between the 2017 World Champion Houston Astros and some team from Boston again showed why Major League Baseball must install automated ball and strike calls and automatic video review if the game is going to have any integrity at all. Regarding the latter, there was a play in which a Houston batter’s swing and miss for strike three was erroneously called a foul ball by the home plate umpire, and the replay claerly showed that the bat had missed any contact by inches. Nonetheless, the batter got another chance. He struck out (“no harm, no foul” literally) a second time, but that was just moral luck. If he had hit a home run, altering the game’s outcome, the system would have been changed with lightning speed: Ye Olde Barn Door Fallacy.

Regarding the constant missed call and strike calls that risk changing the outcome in every game, the previous game in the serious contained a classic example. In a close contest with the two runners on base and a 3-2 count, Red Sox batter Andrew Benintendi was called out on a pitch about six inches outside the strike zone. Instead of the inning continuing with the bases loaded and the AL season RBI leader, J.D. Martinez, coming to the plate, the inning was over. Listening to the ex-players like TBS color man Ron Darling babble excuses and rationalizations is almost as infuriating as the obviously wrong calls. “Well, the ball wasn’t too far off the plate” and “That pitch has been called a strike earlier tonight” and “The umpires have a difficult job”: Shut up, Ron. The strike zone is set by the rules; a ball is either a strike or it isn’t, so a call is either correct or it’s botched. Blatantly missed calls were “part of the game” in an earlier era when nothing could be done about them, but that’s not true now. Baseball is supposed to be determined by the skill and performance of the players, not by random, unpredictable mistakes by the bystanding officials. Can you imagine a criminal defendant sent to prison in a trial where the judge repeatedly allowed inadmissible evidence against him because he misinterpreted the law, and the appeals court shrugging and rejecting an appeal with a unanimous opinion that said, “Hey, mistakes happen! It’s part of the system’s tradition and charm!”

2. Run, Fauxahontas, Run! Fake Native American Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) announced that she finally did have her DNA tested. No cheapie home test for this aspiring Cherokee: she had the DNA test performed by Carlos D. Bustamante, a Stanford University professor (and Democrat) and expert in the field who won a 2010 MacArthur fellowship for his work on tracking population migration via DNA analysis. He concluded that “the vast majority” of Warren’s ancestry is European, but he added that “the results strongly support the existence of an “unadmixed Native American ancestor,” and calculated that Warren’s pure Native American ancestor appears in her family tree “in the range of 6-10 generations ago.” That’s a big range: six generations would make her 1/32nd American Indian, but ten generations would make her 1/1024th Native American. Nothing in the test proves she has the Cherokee ancestry she claims.

“Due to a math error, a story about Elizabeth Warren misstated the ancestry percentage of a potential 6th to 10th generation relative. The generational range based on the ancestor that the report identified suggests she’s between 1/64th and 1/1,024th Native American,” the Globe explained.

This means Warren is somewhere between 0.09 and 1.5 percent Native American, not between .19 and 3.1 percent as originally claimed.

Warren apparently is depending on the ignorance of the American public and positive spin by the left-wing’s captive media to pull off this scam. So far, the news media is cooperating: “Elizabeth Warren Releases DNA Results: She’s Native American,” announces the shameless Daily Beast.

No, she’s not. This warped logic resembles the much-maligned “one drop of negro blood” tradition of yore. The international genome project discovered that one out of every 200 men in the world are direct descendants of Genghis Khan and his many world-conquering, raping and pillaging sons. Does that make .5% of the world’s males Mongolian? The Boston Globe also tries to pretend that the test results justify Warren’s pose as an oppressed minority, writing,

“And while it’s unclear whether the test will convince Trump and his die-hard supporters, Warren will be able to point to it with other, more open-minded voters.”

More gullible, ignorant, statistically and scientifically clueless voters, you mean?

3. Unethical Quote Of the Week, except that nobody should expect anything else from this idiot:

“The way we implement change in America is through elections. We change governments here at home in an orderly and formal way. And in that orderly and formal way and lawful way, we need to overthrow the government of the United States under Donald Trump.”

The New Hampshire Democratic Party shows their stripes if they do not rebuke that rhetoric. Elections don’t “overthrow” governments, but overthrowing the government is indeed what the Angry Undemocratic Left, of which Baldwin is a charter and particularly obnoxious member, has been attempting to do since the 2016 election. Assuming Baldwin knows what he’s saying, always a question in his case, the call is to win the House and Senate so the elected President can be impeached and convicted without Constitutionally valid justification.

That is overthrowing the government, and that is what “the resistance,” Democrats and the news media have been attempting to do for two years.

100 thoughts on “Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 10/15/18: Overthrowing The Government, Replacing Umpires, and Fooling Some Of The People Who Never Did Their Science And Math Assignments [UPDATED!]”

Though let’s be clear, if 10 generations back is 1/1024, then 6 generations back is 1/64.

It’s ludicrously stupid:

1) To claim that even reasonably makes you a certain “type” of person. Some would even say it’s a racist claim. No, if you have no *CULTURAL ATTACHMENTS* to a culture-group, you are not part of that culture group. Warren has zilch, none, nada, absolute zero understanding or experience of native american culture. She’s not a native american.

2) BLOOD DOESN’T make you who you are anyway. I could have 2 full blood Choctaw parents, but if they were affluent and raised me in an upper middle class neighborhood and sent me to the best private schools and we attended church weekly and they never uttered a peep about a rain dance or a wigwam, I would be AS divorced from native american culture as a recent immigrant from Poland.

Her claim is even more mockable now than before.

Thing is, Warren could be 1/64th or 1/32 or hell even 1/16 (which I think is the the bare minimum some tribes permit before registering as a member) and it still wouldn’t make her any more Indian than someone fresh off the boat from Scandinavia. She’s had 0 cultural influence from Indian tribes, she had 0 effective upbringing by that culture.

I take it on word of my ancestors that (based on tracing that ancestor back) I’m at least 1/64th or 1/32 Choctaw…never mind influences from other ancestors I haven’t researched.

Big deal. I’m not an Indian. Neither is Elizabeth Warren. She could be 1/8th for all anyone should care. It doesn’t make her understand the culture one bit better. There’s nothing magical in the blood.

I’d bet she does have a drop or two of indian blood in her. She won’t reveal it because 1/32 or 1/16 or whatever miniscule amount it would end up being will look just as stupid as 0/16ths as an argument that she has any meaningful cultural link with Native Americans…

Why is it that the law doesn’t apply to Democrats? American Indian status is the one racial status in this country that is legally defined and regulated. To be Indian, you must be a member of a federally recognized tribe. Warren isn’t. She can claim she has some Indian ancestry, as vast numbers of Americans do, but she can’t legally claim to be Indian. Now, different tribes have different standards for membership and some do use blood quanta. The Cherokee Nation standard is that you must be descended from someone on the Dawes Roll of the Cherokee residing in Indian Territory. For the Eastern Band of Cherokee you must be at least 1/16 Eastern Cherokee blood and be on the 1924 Baker Roll of Eastern Cherokee Indians. If your ancestors lived in Virginia, Kentucky, or other unauthorized place you can contact the Appalachian Cherokee Nation, but you will never be an Indian because your ancestors weren’t living where the federal government told them they could live. If only Elizabeth Warren knew a lawyer…

Has something to do with the reasonable expectation that followers of the people doing the incitement will actually try to do what they are called on to do. Isn’t that “immanency”?

Has there been any recent conduct by the armies of left wing activists that would lead us to reasonably believe that they are more than willing to act aggressively based on the calls of prominent individuals in the culture?

And if there has been a recognizable trend on the Left of “comment” followed by “action”, would comments such as those made by Alec Baldwin, or even Eric Holder or Maxine Waters, et al, constitute incitement?

The answers to your questions depend on whether or not you’re a fucktard who hasn’t noticed that we overthrow the government every couple of years and has also never bothered to watch televised election returns when invariably during the night one or more talking heads mention that we peacefully overthrow the government on a constitutionally mandated schedule.

I disagree with your characterization, valkygrrl.
If the Government is the Constitution, we don’t overthrow it. And, usually the commentary is not about overthrowing the government, but about the smooth “transition” of power.
-Jut

Fair enough, though “peaceful” attached to “overthrow” clearly indicates that by itself, the term “overthrow” implies violence, and therefore a modified term must be asking for a more nuanced interpretation, even poetic.

There is a deep sickness on the Left side of the national debate, one that increasingly want to annihilate the American institutions that have long protected Rule of Law, Due Process, and peaceful governance.

Is that what you tell yourself to rationalize support of voter-suppression, gerrymandering, trying to get the FBI director to stop investigating a crony, mobs of violent proud boys, lock her up chants, ending blue-slips, refusing to even hold hearings for presidential nominees then turning around crying crocodile tears over every no vote on people who actually got up or down votes, refusal to hold special elections for empty seats in Democratic districts, the use of cabinet offices for personal profit, false claims to care about due process in a job interview while not even allowing the FBI to interview the accuser or the person she named as a witness, while not allowing them to follow up with anyone who came to them with statements when its for a privileged frat bro but turning around and blaming unarmed black men killed by police for their own deaths, they could have used some due process see also, again-lock her up chants.

I bet a judge could order a state mental examination based on that dog’s breakfast of a paranoid, partisan rant. Could you append a % to let us know which of those slanted statement you believe completely, and which you’re just using for effect? For example, I don’t believe you really think gerrymandering isn’t a traditional bipartisan political maneuver, and you must know more about police shootings than to seriously make the statement you did.

I’m content to see gerrymandering ended, by law preferably, it doesn’t matter who does it. One does not run a free country by letting the politicians choose the voters.

I wish for high-turnout, free and fair elections. That means as few barriers to voting as may be, that means districts drawn without partisan advantage in mind, that means not monkeying with the registrations, that means not reducing the number of polling places where you think people won’t vote for you, it means not creating situations where there will be long lines because you think people will give up and go home, it means if you insist on using an electronic machine even though it’s unwise, you choose one that prints a paper record that can be human verified. It means absentee voting requires no justification.

Can you remember the last time you voted *for* something, as opposed to voting *against* something? It’s easy and cathartic to produce a laundry list of things the other side does that you abhor, hell there are people that have built their entire career on those premises… It’s just not particularly useful, and it’s almost never done with honest, good intentions.

Overthrow implies force and violence, and I’m pretty sure you know that, as does Alec. An election is the replacement of a government with the full consent of both the government officials involves and the governed. Find me any published source that refers to elections as “overthrowing” the government.

Terminology is what gets almost everyone who talk politics into trouble. Anyone who says an election is an “overthrow” is an idiot, but I understand it also as a term of art. With the invective and crazy things said in American politics, this is pretty pale. It would have probably been better to have said “overthrow the republican majority” or “overthrow the current administration” and we would get closer to his meaning because that still keeps the current form of government intact – but ‘overthrow’ does have a more ‘irregular’ meaning to it. Regardless if it was peaceful or violent, ‘overthrow’ suggests removing the target from office prior to the expiration of their current mandate….and it also suggests that it is not just one person, but enough to cause a change in political dominance. You can’t remove Donald Trump as president and put Mike Pence in as president and say you “overthrew his administration”….Mike Pence is a part of his administration. You would have to get deep into the line of succession before you found someone who would qualify as a political opponent and not considered part of the administration.

No….what Alec Bladwin means “we need to throw out the Republicans in Congress that support Trump’s ideology”… but we knew what he meant. He was just determined to say it with more vigor and vim to make his audience feel like revolutionaries who are changing the world.

I think we all assume he meant something less revolutionary because this is the quote you provided:“The way we implement change in America is through elections. We change governments here at home in an orderly and formal way. And in that orderly and formal way and lawful way, we need to overthrow the government of the United States under Donald Trump.”

I also noted that Joe West could not quite manage to get out of the way of a ball thrown WAY off the mark when an Astro stole second, thus preventing a past ball and another base for the runner. No harm done, though. That was in the 4-run 7th inning.

1. I have been asking for computerized calling of balls and strikes for three years now. Especially since everyone watching the game sees, over and over again, that umpires make bad calls all… the… time. The old-timers and play-by-play announcers make blithe statements about how individual umpires have big or small strike zones: the strike zone is the strike zone, and now we can see it clearly, independent of both poorly- or well-trained home plate umpires. I don’t think Major League Baseball will move to robo ball/strike calling, but if egregious bad calls continue into the World Series, I personally would join any effort to have New York review balls and strikes just as they do base running and fielding.

2. Elizabeth Warren is an idiot, but assumes everyone else is. Outside of Massachusetts, it’s clear. Does she really have Presidential aspirations? Overreaching and overestimating her importance, only worse than Alec Baldwin’s (see below), because she’s already an elected official.

3. Alec Baldwin (the first Jack Ryan in “The Hunt for Red October,” who said he didn’t follow on with other Jack Ryan movies because of the character’s conservatism, and who others say he was not picked for the part in subsequent movies was because he was a cocaine-using, temperamental asshole [is that allowed on this blog?]) who overreaches all the time and overrates his importance, in any arena. Is espousing an “overthrow of the government” treason? Is it promulgating terrorism? We’re already seeing terrorism on the part of the ‘resistors.’ I just don’t think this is going to end well, or if the Democrats will regain their sanity. It’s frightening. Time for an investigation, by either the Justice Department or the Congress.

Jack said (with typo corrected): Regarding the latter, there was a play in which a Houston batter’s swing and miss for strike three was erroneously called a foul ball by the home plate umpire, and the replay [clearly] showed that the bat had missed any contact by inches.

How did that happen? Was it a passed ball? If the catcher caught it, he would still be out. If it was indeed a strike (and a passed ball), there would be a chance for the batter to steal first, no (with runners advancing)? While I am sympathetic to your arguments about the strike zone, a scenario where the batter could steal first on a passed ball third-strike requires an immediate call. If you want to impose computerized calling of balls and strikes, you might have to get rid of the rule about stealing first.

If the batter and pitch I am thinking of is the same one Jack commented on, the umpire called a “foul ball,” saying the swung bat grazed the pitched ball. I did not see any evidence during the replay that the bat came anywhere close to the ball. And yet the umpire did not call a “swing-and-a-miss” strike three. So the ump must have been trusting his own auditory hallucination, claiming that he heard the bat graze the ball.

I want the Astros to win (IF they win) fair and square, with none of their “breaks” being due to bad calls. The Astros did not deserve that “break.” It was a bad call.

I don’t recall the play, but I might well have been listening to the radio broadcast. However, if there were two strikes, then if the umpire calls a foul ball and the catcher catches it, the batter has struck out (foul tip).

Only if the umpire calls a foul tip and the catcher doesn’t catch the ball would the at bat continue. In that case, if the umpire doesn’t call it a foul, the batter has struck out, but since the catcher missed the ball he is entitled to run to first base, and the catcher must tag him out or throw him out.

Unless, of course, first base was already occupied, in which case the batter is out on a strikeout even though the catcher misses the ball.

And yes, if you had a computer calling the balls and strikes it would also have to yell out ‘Foul ball’ instantly, or whatever the umpires do to let everyone know what happened. The computer would have to not only calculate whether the ball was in or out of the strike zone for that batter, but it would have to determine (instantly) whether it was fouled off, whether it hit the batter, etc. All of that has to happen in real time and has to be communicated to the players in real time.

So, Google is still our friend. You are correct — the number of outs does matter. So, if the catcher doesn’t catch the third strike and first base is occupied, the batter is still out unless there are two outs, in which case the play is live.

Apparently the rationale behind this is similar to that of the infield fly rule. It keeps the defensive team from deliberately dropping the third strike and trying to turn a double play — catcher to second to first. With two outs, there can’t be a double play so that exception doesn’t apply (nor can there be an infield fly rule).

So in this situation, the catcher had to have not caught the ball for the umpire to rule it a foul ball. Otherwise, if he had caught it it would have been a foul tip and the batter would have been out.

Yes, so the wrong call preserved the status quo. The right call might have given either side an advantage (especially if that call came from a remote source 5seconds after the pitch went past. THAT would not be fair, either.

Someone or something has to do that. What I am saying is that I do not believe that — even if it were desirable, which I dispute — I don’t think you can divorce all these other decisions from the determination of whether a pitch is a ball or a strike, or a foul ball or a foul tip or a hit batsman.

All this stuff has to be done in real time. Why do I keep saying ‘in real time’? Because it’s incredibly difficult.

Let’s also think about this. If computers are so brilliant at doing all this stuff, why aren’t they used for replay reviews? Because the human mind is better at interpreting this stuff.

Using computers to call balls and strikes is not going to eliminate wrong calls. It will, however, have unintended consequences that — judging from the replay system — are not good for the game. I don’t know what they will be — that’s one reason they are unintended, but they are always there.

There’s no way for Warren to win this fight with Trumpers. Even if her results showed that she was 100% Cherokee, you all would be ranting that she still can’t claim that because she doesn’t belong to an official tribe (despite the fact that she took the test only to shut up the demands for genetic verification from Trumpers). And then if she could show that she belonged to an official tribe, you would argue that she doesn’t look Cherokee, so it doesn’t count. And then, if she admitted that she dyes her hair and wears blue contacts, you all would say, “Well, this all goes to show why Affirmative Action should be abolished anyway, because she looks like a white Connecticut lady to me.” Then, if she did talk about actual discrimination in her past, you would question whether it happened at all, or argue that the real discrimination in America is against white men, and but for her listing that she had Native American heritage on a bio somewhere, probably some white man would have had her job.

So, knowing how this all plays out, I think it was politically unwise for Warren to take the test, because all it did was bring new life to this stupid debate. On the other hand, perhaps she did it to test the waters to see if maybe she could do a Presidential run. Hopefully this will demonstrate to her that the Dems can’t take the chance of running another flawed candidate, because the world can’t survive President Scott Baio.

In the meantime, do I still get to claim my British and German origins even though I hate mincemeat and sausages of all kinds? I just want to make sure it’s okay with the rest of you before it comes up in conversation again.

Ha ha! Very true. Let’s do some 23andme among the current Germans in the House of Windsor as well.

My traceable British roots go back to the 16th C. — I’m not sure if there is Viking, Norman, Celt (or some mixture) that makes up my British half. I do have a strong aversion to cilantro, I think I read somewhere that the aversion can be traced back to some Celtic gene.

Uhg, please don’t give your DNA to one of those companies. You really have no way of knowing who’ll end up making use of it or for what. First, it’s private, then cops use family trees from DNA matches to catch serial killers, then they’re using it to find protestors then one day someone’s using it for ethnic cleansing.

Wow. Then you have reading comprehension problems if you think what you wrote even remotely addresses my attitude towards the concept of “ethnicity” and culture. But, I appreciate the effort. I’ll have to go back and re-read it since not a single word of it seems to associate with my original comments.

When did we become ‘Trumpers?’ Did everyone get the memo but me? Here I see this blog calling out Trump all the time, just not as much as progressives, because (as far as we know) Trump has not lost his mind, and suddenly we are Trumpers?

As to all of Sparty’s rationalizations, she is projecting. This is how the Left acts, not the right. Warren used a lie (as in “she intended to deceive”) to further her ambitions, and Sparty hates that Warren is called on it, it being true and all…

I think this fails to understand that Lieawatha was called out almost an entire election cycle before Trump came on the scene, although he has made an art out of mocking her. I think it also fails to take into account the context of why Warren’s mendacity matters:

Whether or not Warren is or is not a Cherokee Princess with appropriately high cheekbones, the fact of the matter is that for the last 100 years of her family history, it’s been white as the driven snow. She was raised in an affluent, nuclear family, had every opportunity in life, and then claimed a disenfranchised minority status for the purpose of employment at Harvard.

Even if it were true. That fact pattern should have your average progressive chewing nails and calling her out for gaming the system. She may have taken the spot of someone who might have more legitimately claimed affirmative action…. But you don’t care because you like her politics? Or maybe you just don’t actually care about the legitimacy of affirmative action.

Nevermind whether this is enough for a Trump supporter. Why is it enough for you?

I don’t think Elizabeth Warren should run for President. But I primarily think that because the “Lock her Up” crowd is especially good at bumper stickers that seem to appeal to the mouth breathers. So, I can see the Lieawatha propaganda already.

As for what she said or didn’t say years ago, if I followed the controversy correctly at the time, she actually listed her Native American ancestry on a website, not that she “checked a box” on a job application. But, even if she did, my reasoning stands. It’s very dangerous to call people on their ethnicity or to demand proof of it.

My husband (whom Jack has met) is roughly 50% Mexican, 25% Native American, and 25% German. And he looks VERY German, even though he speaks Spanish and German. He has numerous relatives who “look” like Mexicans, but he does not. He has never “checked the box” for Latino or Native American. Can he? Should he? Does he have to show proof with some mighty tasty enchiladas (they really are good). Or is his word enough? Is it that someone has to look a certain way or is being from the culture enough?

And here’s a rationalization for you. Let’s say that Warren honestly did believe that she was part Cherokee AND that mentioning that would help her career. Is that wrong? There are plenty of legacy candidates wandering around the Ivy League who wouldn’t be there but for the fact that daddy went there or Auntie Warbucks made a sizeable donation. Do we get to call into question their bona fides too? Or is it okay to check the “privileged” box on those college applications with no fear of bumper sticker repercussions down the line in case they want to run for office?

“And here’s a rationalization for you. Let’s say that Warren honestly did believe that she was part Cherokee AND that mentioning that would help her career. Is that wrong?”

Yes, enthusiastically, with consent, YES! Otherwise what is the justification for affirmative action? The point of putting those boxes on forms to check (and she did) was to bring people that DIDN’T have all the opportunities in life up, not to affluent people with a little melanin in their family tree a leg up on other affluent candidates.

If certain affluenza-suffering unscrupulous people use their history to get a leg up, that’s a bug, not a feature… And people like you should really give it to them because they give people like me who aren’t too shit-hot on the idea of affirmative action ammo. You shouldn’t act like they’re a God Damned posterchild for progressive values and make it so damn easy!

Let’s say that Warren honestly did believe that she was part Cherokee AND that mentioning that would help her career. Is that wrong?

1) I think it is wrong. Not if she accurately represented her presumed ancestry in an admissions context, but for a job, as an upper middle class law school grad who has hardly been oppressed or disadvantaged by pale faces, AND who is a burgeoning social justice warrior, to try to use such a”credential” to jump ahead of an applicant who might be better qualified. It’s hypocritical, and that has always been the basis of that criticism. That, and the fact that she’s refused to say that, upon reflection, it was not the right thing to do.

Who’s calling out her “bona fides”? Not me. Presumably she was qualified to be a professor; the issue is whether she used a fair strategy to get the job over another qualified individual who was white and not so clever about finding a “diversity” hook. Now, a Harvard applicant with who claimed, without actual proof, that his great great great great grandfather went to Old Ivy would be laughed out of the admissions office.

Of no relevance to the thread: this comment is the Spartan of old, nee’ Still Spartan, aka ‘Sparty’ Welcome back!

“…think that because the “Lock her Up” crowd is especially good at bumper stickers that seem to appeal to the mouth breathers.”

Hillary called us ‘the deplorables.’ We will thank you to stick with the official slurs so those of us who prefer to breathe with our mouth understand when we are being insulted. /s

The rest of this post is not aimed at you, Spartan, specifically: just exploring some interesting concepts you brought up, or that were spawned in what I claim to be a brain.

“It’s very dangerous to call people on their ethnicity or to demand proof of it.”

Why not? Progressives have made everything about identity politics (and excommunicated many for not being progressive enough; for not toeing the line across the spectrum) so why not have to provide proof?

What is to prevent my son (whose has no apparent melanin content) from claiming to be hispanic for the purposes of school scholarships? Other than the whole ‘this is wrong’ thing, I mean.

Or is this a MeToo thing, where ‘he must be believed’ if he claims minority status? We cannot have this both ways, can we?

If ‘he must be believed,’ then nothing stops the privileged from claiming affirmative action benefits, and thus the minorities it was intended to help lose out. If this is to be avoided, then one must provide proof of such claims. Am I missing a logical option, here?

“Let’s say that Warren honestly did believe that she was part Cherokee AND that mentioning that would help her career. Is that wrong?”

Only if you really believe in Affirmative Action as a policy. Otherwise it is a sham used by elites to take advantage of the system.

“There are plenty of legacy candidates wandering around the Ivy League who wouldn’t be there but for the fact that daddy went there or Auntie Warbucks made a sizeable donation. Do we get to call into question their bona fides too? ”

Apples and oranges. Whether or not you agree such a system should exist, the Legacy programs require proof that one really had an ancestor attend the college. One cannot take the stance both ways: progressives are saying no proof was necessary for Warren to benefit unfairly, nor do they want minorities to be checked by any means test whatsoever.

Warren just proved she did NOT qualify for the Affirmative Action boost she stole, and progressives think this is a good thing. That speaks volumes.

Not that this will matter to anybody, but my father, a 6’6″ Nordic giant was Norwegian. My mother had a Celtic mother and a Saxon father. Someone once told me they should put an axe in my hand and get out of the way. All this amounts to exactly zilch, primarily because I belong to no known minority group nor have my ancestors ever been “oppressed”. At least not going back the three generations I know about. I would place Warren in the same boat. Because some warrior 400 years ago dipped his wick with a remote ancestor does NOT make you a native American (who are not native, by the way) Any more than my father makes me a Viking. Although it might have been fun at the time, it’s frowned on now.

I don’t think you are following my point on legacy candidates. So what if you can prove that great-grandad went there? It is an unfair advantage and immaterial to the grandson’s success at the school.

Similarly, if the school permits Affirmative Action, but does not define what that looks like, is it wrong for a person to claim that ancestry?

I am 50/50 German and English. Can I claim either or do I have to choose? What if it turns out that I am only 1/4 German even though I have a German name? What if it turns out (and this is a very real rumor in my family) that my British grandfather really wasn’t my grandfather? I was raised in British traditions — I make trifle and serve tea instead of coffee. But maybe I am not British, maybe I am 50% African-American and only look white?

The fault — if anywhere — lies with the school. If Warren truly believed that she had Native American ancestry, and the school did not require a certain percentage to claim that status, then there was nothing unethical about her using that to her advantage in the hiring process. Be mad at the policy, not her.

What this all comes down to is that many people here (and in the Republican party generally) think at the end of the day that skin color matters in claiming national origin or race status. And, putting aside skin color, you think these policies discriminate against whites. So this was a no-win situation for Warren if she thought she would change votes.

Huh? The logic behind legacy admits is purely financial and in the long-term interests of the institution. Building family loyalty toward a school, and encouraging financial support as part of a quid pro quo. Similarly, faculty, administrators and volunteers get a thumb on the scale for their kids, if they are also qualified. If that isn’t done, tuition is too high for poorer students to afford. It’s a defensible trade-off.

Also yep, if by virtue of the fact that if she can’t win this fight anyway.

“Even if her results showed that she was 100% Cherokee, you all would be ranting that she still can’t claim that because she doesn’t belong to an official tribe (despite the fact that she took the test only to shut up the demands for genetic verification from Trumpers). And then if she could show that she belonged to an official tribe, you would argue that she doesn’t look Cherokee, so it doesn’t count. And then, if she admitted that she dyes her hair and wears blue contacts, you all would say, “Well, this all goes to show why Affirmative Action should be abolished anyway, because she looks like a white Connecticut lady to me.” Then, if she did talk about actual discrimination in her past, you would question whether it happened at all, or argue that the real discrimination in America is against white men, and but for her listing that she had Native American heritage on a bio somewhere, probably some white man would have had her job.”

Strawman.

“So, knowing how this all plays out, I think it was politically unwise for Warren to take the test, because all it did was bring new life to this stupid debate. On the other hand, perhaps she did it to test the waters to see if maybe she could do a Presidential run.”

Scant little of what Elizabeth Warren does leads me to believe she thinks seriously about the Presidency.

“Hopefully this will demonstrate to her that the Dems can’t take the chance of running another flawed candidate, because the world can’t survive President Scott Baio.”

I think this still subtly betrays a belief that Hillary wasn’t abjectly flawed in almost every aspect of her candidacy. She wasn’t just a flawed candidate. She was hopelessly beyond repair from several angles. All candidates are flawed. She was broken.

I don’t see how they can avoid running another VERY flawed candidate, unless someone new emerges. And since the party now endorses allowing a single accuser of 6th grade misconduct who is female to destroy any male candidate’s reputation (You think women aen’t out there ready to report a Biden “grope” in 1964?) they are stuck with the awful field of females—of which Warren is better than most.

Well, I can’t promise you, with how Republicans shoot themselves in the foot, that the Republican running against her won’t just jump up and down on stage slapping their hand on their mouth as they say “woo woo woo woo woo”.

1) I have been railing against instant replay in baseball for years both here and elsewhere, and continue to believe that it has been a bad influence on the game. I am willing to accept the fact that umpires are not 100% perfect.

In fact, though, I was reading some articles not that long ago on computerized calls of balls and strikes, and it is still a non trivial exercise (that’s computerese for, ‘It’s damned hard’). It would not be 100% accurate — the challenge would be to make it more accurate than the umpires currently are without requiring a mainframe behind each plate. Regardless of whether it becomes technically feasible, I hope I never live to see the day.

2) Regarding Massachusetts, there is a certain historical irony that was brought home to me as I was reading an account of Lincoln and his Cabinet. As now, 150 years ago Massachusetts was pretty much in the hands of the radicals, who were denouncing the conservatives at every turn. Of course, then the radicals were the Radical Republicans espousing immediate emancipation, even in the Northern states and criticizing the moderate Republicans.

In one of Harry Turtledove’s series where the South won the Civil War, Lincoln is defeated for re-election and the Republicans are marginalized for a generation. Lincoln himself becomes a leader of the Socialist party in the postwar years. A very plausible idea, I thought.

1) This stubborn insistence on “tradition” and “unwritten rules” have killed my enthusiasm for the game. Growing up, I loved the game and the players; as I got older I started seeing more of the issues (steroid abuse didn’t help either). Compare to the NFL with a competition committee that re-evaluateas the game and rules each year to see how to keep the game interesting and relevant; sure they can sometimes go overboard (what is a catch? And what is roughing the passer?) Baseball needs to take a hard look at moving into at least the 20th century.

2) Growing up in Oklahoma, 50% of the people there claim to have Cherokee blood. I have many Choctaw, Cherokee, and Chickasaw friends. My issue with Warren is the “appropriation” of Cherokee for something that has had no practical impact on her life. My wife is small part Cherokee (although a card-carrying member of a different tribe that she is more than 1/8 of – long story) and generally reports on forms that she is white as she doesn’t need to play a victim / race card.

3) As much as I think Baldwin is an idiot, I have to give him the benefit of the doubt that he didn’t choose his words very carefully. Motivational speech like this can often be short and imprecise. I take his use of “overthrow” to mean take over the house and senate to frustrate the efforts of President Trump to enact policy. My hackles remain lowered.

Aligned attitudinally with The Shadow on the Blue Screwball Bastards taking over Congress, I am yawning about the prospects of a Demobrat majority deciding to “get TRUMP.”

If those brats, almost unanimously assholes, all of them, obsess over TRUMPed-up charges for impeachment, then they truly are the Shit of the Earth, with shit for brains, if they think such criminal, seditious power-grabbing won’t result in multitudes of their heads literally rolling down the streets of Washington DC before 2020, along with many heads of their lawyer, “professor,” financier, propagandist, paid-activist, and “FA” allies.

So, when conservatives are excoriated for starting off a comment with “I’m not racist, I have two black friends…” shouldn’t Warren be excoriated for starting off a comment with “I’m not white, I have one great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandparent who may or may not have been native american…”

Damn. I posted a really cool response to Still Spartan above but somehow it got lost in the (or to the?) cyberether. Too bad, that. It was pithy. I do note that others have covered my points, except this part:

The test — conducted by Stanford University professor Carlos D. Bustamante, a leading authority on genetic ancestry — showed “the vast majority” of Warren’s ancestry is European, but also “strong evidence” that Warren’s DNA sample reveals a Native American in her family tree “six to 10 generations ago.” And, Bustamante concluded that “the vast majority” of Warren’s ancestry is European, but he added that “the results strongly support the existence of an “unadmixed Native American ancestor,” perhaps dating back to the 1700s. That seems awfully vague to be almost meaningless.

Wikitionary.org defines “unadmixed” as “not admixed” or “lacking admixture”. “Admix” means “to mingle with something else”. So, it seems that “unadmixed” means not mixed or not mingled. Is that a fancy way of saying that the test is inconclusive?

I think that’s correct. Is there any “account” by E.Warren about this ancestor? You suggested in your response (probably for convenience) that the ancestor is a “he”. Might be a “she”. But is there an account of the family dynamic – like was this a “star-crossed lovers of similar age” story? Or is this a barbaric act or abuse of power with a result akin to bastardization?

I have no idea. There are numerous, documented stories a white women abducted and impregnated. Or star-crossed lovers…or any number of other things. Right now, I doubt if anyone knows, including Warren. It has been “6-10 generations.

Which is even more suspect as South American DNA is replete with European influences all it’s own… finding a genetically isolated Native American tribe guarantees that the DNA found in Warren’s ancestry is probably the small sliver of DNA held in common by all humans.

“Using a DNA test to lay claim to any connection to the Cherokee Nation or any tribal nation, even vaguely, is inappropriate and wrong,” said Cherokee Nation Secretary of State Chuck Hoskin Jr. “It makes a mockery out of DNA tests and its legitimate uses while also dishonoring legitimate tribal governments and their citizens, whose ancestors are well documented and whose heritage is proven.”

Warren has drawn criticism from other indigenous activists.

“No native tribe acknowledges DNA testing as a source for citizenship or even claim to native heritage,” said Rebecca Nagle, an indigenous writer, organizer and citizen of the Cherokee Nation.

“She comes from a well-documented line of white people and so there is ample evidence that all of her ancestors are documented white people on the census rolls, by their marriage and birth and death certificates since going back before the Trail of Tears,” she added, referring to the forced migration of Native Americans to west of the Mississippi in the 1830s.

The beauty of the test methodology: The DNA scientist who completed an ancestry test for Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren was unable to use Native American DNA in his examination.

Warren apparently felt compelled to get her DNA tested after years of attacks from opponents who say she falsely claimed to have Cherokee ties.

According to a report by the Boston Globe, there is no Native American DNA available for genetic testing “because Native American leaders have asked tribal members not to participate in genetic databases.” “To make up for the dearth of Native American DNA, Bustamante used samples from Mexico, Peru, and Colombia to stand in for Native American. That’s because scientists believe that the groups Americans refer to as Native American came to this land via the Bering Strait about 12,000 years ago and settled in what’s now America but also migrated further south,” the Boston Globe reported.

If the Boston Globe isn’t helping, then you have problems. Sorry, Sen. Warren, try again.

Well, as I have been saying all day (here and elsewhere), I think taking this test was politically unwise. There are only two logical reasons for her to do it: 1) she was pretty sure that she had Native American ancestry; or 2) she knew the results would not be great, but she wanted to test the Presidential running water anyway.

I hope this convinces her not to run. I like her, and I believe in many of her policies, but she is too old and this issue (even if she is earnest in her belief) will not die.